Sour Krauts
For All Nails #28: Sour Krauts by Noel Maurer ---- :Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire :21 July 1970 Adolph Markstein was a happy man. That was because he was insane. No sane person could possibly have held his job for eight years and also be happy, not right now. Of course, both his father and his wife regularly called him insane for having chosen to go into politics. Until he had actually taken the Chancellor's job, he had always despised "The Madman Bruning." Now he had a healthy respect for him. Of course, Bruning had never realized he was insane, while Markstein fully did. Hmmm. If you knew you were crazy, did that make you sane? He shook the last drops of urine away and zipped up his pants. The cabinet meeting was not going to be long, but it was going to be annoying. It would, of course, only get more so should the Chancellor of the German Empire get up to go to the bathroom right in the middle. Today's subject was the riots breaking out all over Lorraine. They seemed far away from the Chancellery here in Berlin, where the sky was blue and traffic hummed calmly along the city's broad boulevards. Why did they put a window in the executive bathroom? he wondered, not for the first time. A little window, high up, but still. He was a tall man. Markstein had carefully timed his interlude in the loo so that he would be the last one into the cabinet room. Ah, my cabinet, he thought. Time to get to work. Giving his strategy for the meeting one last run-through, he pushed open the door from the loo's small antechamber --- it wouldn't do for the toilet to be visible from the cabinet room, would it? --- and entered. The Chancellor of the German Empire nodded around the table, even giving Michael Schroder a brief two-handed slap on one shoulder. It wasn't a jovial slap, more of a "pick yourself up, man!" slap. Michael knew that meant Not a word this meeting, hear? Waves and nods and cheery "hellos" to the others. Moving to the front of the elongated, vaguely elliptical table, Markstein settled his tall lanky frame into a chair. He had seen a vita of himself once, and was well aware that he bore a very unfortunate resemblance to a preying mantis whenever he sat down or stood up, which is why in public he almost always was spotted doing only one or the other. He smiled the smile that he knew was deranged but everyone else seemed to think was charming. Especially considering as he was the first German chancellor to smile and grin on the hustings since, well, ever. You could learn a lot from those Mexicans and North Americans if you tried, he had always told himself. Hell, the Mexican dictator hosted variety shows, for the love of God, and some German cranks criticized him for smiling and kissing babies? It got votes. Not that he wouldn't host a variety show if he thought that would get votes too... "Welcome, Chancellor," said Joachim Teltschik, the Finance Minister. Joachim was also extremely tall, with a pinched and elongated face that just screamed Prussian nobility. He wasn't of course, but he looked the part, all the way down to the small rimless glasses perched on his nose. What he was, in fact, was the Liberal member of Markstein's cabinet. And very old school. Not really humorless, exactly, but his sense of humor was far drier than the Arabian desert. "Thank you, Herr Teltschik." Formal prig. But they needed the Liberals. "And hello Michael, Joshua, Angela, Horst, Klaus, Hans, all of you. Good morning. Let's begin with the status report. Hans?" Hans Steiner ran the Interior Ministry. As such, the riots in Lorraine came under his purview. "Cabinet ministers," he began. Another old school type, like Teltschik. The man was built like a human porterhouse steak, with the sense of humor you'd expect. "The situation is as follows. A German citizen in Nancy named Michel Mueller apparently threw a rock at the King of Lorraine's motorcade at 3:14 p.m., as it was passing by the Rue Poniatowski." Steiner paused for a second, running his hand over his head. His hair was so thick and he kept it so short that it resembled nothing so much as the fur of a cat. "Herr Mueller was promptly arrested by the royal security detail, of course. More accurately, they attempted to arrest him. Passers-by evidently noted what was happening and stepped to the rock-thrower's defense. When the security men attempted to prevent the crowd from getting to close, more rocks were thrown, and the incident soon erupted into a melee." He paused again. "The royal detail managed to keep the crowd away, although they were forced to release Mueller. The mob was not yet sufficiently organized to block streets or prevent the detail from escaping. I would like to reiterate that neither the King nor anyone in the security detail was wounded, save the driver of the affected vehicle, who suffered minor lacerations." Angela Bitterlich, the minister of Commerce, Competition and Consumer Affairs, couldn't restrain herself from interrupting. "This is why we need to adopt North American regulations requiring shatterproof glass in all locomobile windows!" By God, thought Markstein, that bitch is self-righteous, but she is popular. And she is also extremely attractive. Which doesn't hurt in either winning votes or making it through these meetings. Yes, you could learn from those North Americans. Markstein had picked Bitterlich from obscurity three days after seeing that Levine woman from New York on the vita FN1. Fortunately, Bitterlich was nowhere near as intelligent as Levine seemed to be. Unfortunately, she didn't realize it. It didn't help matters that Teltschik, who was quite acute, passionately hated Bitterlich, especially since he never could quite understand why her ministry wasn't subsumed in his. Markstein was quite prepared to let Angela's non sequitur slide, but Teltschik had to go and say, "That's not relevant, Frau Bitterlich. May we stick to the issue, please?" Angela's mouth opened to retort when Markstein smoothly cut in. "Wait, Angela. The locomobile safety bill is very important, and we will pass a version this legislative session, but this is not the time to debate the issue." Bitterlich was outspoken and combative, but as the second female cabinet minister in German history she felt more than a little defensive. She was, however, just smart enough to realize she had made a mistake. Bitterlich nodded yes, and Markstein told Steiner to continue. "A street demonstration gathered, and as these things will, turned ugly rapidly. Within forty minutes mobs had smashed every shop window on the Rue Poniatowski. As far as we can tell, local police did nothing to try to stop the looting. We have not yet been able to determine whether the local administration deliberately ordered the police not to intervene or if it was a simple oversight. The mayor's office is not returning calls from Berlin." Steiner looked grave. Not that Markstein had ever seen him look anything but grave. He was a grave man. Unfortunately, the joke didn't seem to work well in German. "By the next morning, this morning, demonstrations had formed in every major city in Lorraine. Spontaneous and disorganized, most were peaceful. Sporadic rioting did occur, however, in residential districts in Colmar and Belfort, and a demonstration in Bastogne turned violent when local police attempted to disperse the demonstrators. Once the violence began, however, as in Nancy, the police failed to act. We do not know if their failure was deliberate. We do know, however, that Premier Lellouche refused to call out the Royal Territorial Army, even when presented with a direct request from the Interior Ministry." FN2 Which meant that Steiner had called Lellouche personally, and had been told no. He now looked even graver. "Since the disturbances show no sign of lessening, the Interior Ministry feels that the matter should be brought to the attention of the full cabinet." Steiner's penchant for understatement showed up in more than his avoidance of the first person. FN3 The solid and stolid Steiner fell silent, turning into a giant besuitted slab of meat. By God, thought Markstein, he acts just like an Imperial Marine. Sometimes that man scares me. Or he would, if anything scared me. The silence didn't last for a second, however, before Klaus Klima, the Social Welfare minister, burst out. "By God, what do those Froggies want? We give them autonomy, exempt them from most federal taxes, shovel benefits at them, and they're still not satisfied!" Along with Teltschik, Klima was a minority member of the coalition cabinet, from the conservative Bohemian-Moravian regionalist party. He pounded his fist on the table, belying his region's reputation for calm endurance. "You don't see Czechs or Germans burning down their own cities!" Czechs are too apathetic, thought Markstein. Now us Bavarians, we can throw a riot. But not over something as boring as politics. Football, maybe. Bitterlich interjected, "Most Czechs and Germans have jobs." Here we go again. thought Markstein, as Teltschik piped up. Of course, Markstein wasn't really bothered. This was how he led his cabinet: let them batter each other into such exhaustion that anything he might propose would be gladly accepted. "Those subsidies," said Teltschik, in a voice that was almost hectoring, "are why they don't have jobs. We should eliminate them." "No," responded Bitterlich, "They don't have jobs because their industrial plant is old and outworn." "And Bohemia's wasn't?" tossed in Klima. "Teltschik is right. We reward failure in Lorraine. We pay workers to stay where there are no jobs, we pay firms to make pointless 'restructurings' that make sense only to bureaucrats," a thinly-veiled jab at Bitterlich's ministry, "We shovel money at a corrupt autonomous government that makes Mercator's Mexico look like Scandinavia! High time we cut them loose." Markstein smiled inwardly at how his Social Welfare minister, like so many Czechs, never seemed all that comfortable with the idea of social welfare ... I am the very model of a modern master minister, I am. he chuckled to himself. Yes, I am quite mad, aren't I? Mwa hah! FN4 "That would only provoke more riots, and you know it," shot back Bitterlich. "Ahem." That was Horst Voth, the Defense Minister. "How is this debate germane to deciding our current course of action?" "Root causes are always relevant," said Bitterlich. Time to interject. "Herr Klima, Herr Teltschik," said Markstein, "Cutting Lorraine's subsidies is not on the table. The Bloc Francais controls nine of Lorraine's twelve seats in the federal Diet. Considering the extreme precariousness of our current position, and the likelihood of the Bloc increasing their representation in the next election, I do not think it would be sensible to give the opposition something with which to bribe them." He paused and looked towards Bitterlich. "Angela, if you will permit me the luxury of rephrasing your position in far baser political terms, I must agree with you that regardless of the long-term benefits of removing Lorraine's fiscal privileges," he raised both hands in a calming gesture, "doing so now would be a horrendously ill-timed action, something to which I think even Klaus and Herr Teltschik would agree." He looked at them expectantly. I am genius! Klima bit first, since his opposition to subsidies was less ideological than Teltschik's. "It would increase hardship in Lorraine temporarily." "They'll live," said Teltschik. "Yes," added Markstein, "But this government wouldn't. Horst! What's your opinion?" Change the topic, Horst, c'mon, focus like a coherence ray ... "Martial law, Chancellor. Order the RTA to restore order." Right on target, Horst! Oh, I am good. Do they even see how I'm playing this cabinet like a clarinet? I missed my calling, I did. If that Mexican music, what do you call it, had been around when I was younger, I certainly would have been a musician. Cabinet ministers in C-minor. "I concur," added the Interior Minister. This was less than surprising, considering as he had unilaterally tried to order Premier Lellouche to do precisely that the day before. "But why would Lellouche refuse to call out the guard in the first place?" asked Joshua Merkel, the Exterior minister. "Surely that's obvious," piped in Teltschik. This man wins elections? thought Markstein to himself, and not for the first time. He can't help being an a--hole. "He wants political cover at home, to be able to say that Berlin made him do it." "Wait," said Klima, "Stopping rioters has to be popular." Not for the first time and not for the last, Markstein immediately reversed his assessment of Teltschik's political instincts. "The law-abiding citizens of Lorraine just want the rioting stopped, like citizens anywhere in Germany," said Teltschik. "If we don't overly publicize Lellouche's hesitation, then he won't play it up either. It will look like we pre-empted the entire situation, and let him work both ends of his electorate. Who will be able to say what he would have done?" Here's where Klima showed his worth. As a member of a regional party, he knew how they operated. "In fact, we can gain from this. Lellouche is Bloc, of course. We make it clear that we can make hay from his hesitancy, but won't ... if his men in the federal Diet vote the way we want them to vote." Oh, this meeting was unfolding like clockwork! Damn, but I know my stuff, thought Markstein. Bruning had to stuff ministers in jail or toss them out of airmobiles to get these results. He looked at Angela with a quizzical You gonna take that? expression, and she rose to the bait. "That won't work if we touch regional subsidies." And there goes Teltschik! "But we can get other liberalizing measures through instead, at the national level." And Klima again: "As long as unemployment stay relatively low in the rest of Germany, why should we care if Lorraine stays a disaster area? The Germany Party isn't getting any votes there, my party certainly isn't, and seriously Joachim, I don't see it as a big base of Liberal support either." Joshua Merkel looked a bit uncomfortable at writing off Lorraine, probably worried about the repercussions in France, but relations with France were only technically his bailiwick, since the French Republic was only technically independent. In reality, Steiner and Voth ran that show, and everyone knew it. Anyway, Josh knew full well what Markstein was up to, and he wouldn't ruin the ballet. Time to wrap this one up. It was only an emergency meeting, and this was going to be a looong day anyway. He and Merkel were scheduled to meet with Eric later to talk about ... oyyyyy ... France. Poor Eric! Well, he deserved it. And then he had to talk to Voth and Merkel about the Polish situation. That was going to be folllowed by a very irritating meeting with the entire Liberal leadership. Would they give him locomobile safety if he gave them lower tariffs? Which would affect his position with the goddamned Bloc Francais. And the damn tariff bill would then mean he would have to talk to Merkel again and call a meeting of the Zollverein Council to push the new tariff through. Berlin openly controlled Poland's, Hungary's, and Croatia's votes, of course, and could tacitly order the Netherlands and France and the A.R.R. countries around, but the damned Italians and Greeks and Dacians had these pretensions ... and would feel the need to put up a show of resisting any drop in the Zollverein's external tariff FN5. A formality, but an annoying one, although thank God he could hand that over to Merkel or Schroder. Yes, they had to finish up this meeting, well, thirty seconds ago. "So we're agreed then. The RTA will be federalized and called out to restore order. We'll keep the Premier's recalcitrance quiet, and demand a political quid pro quo. Once the disturbances are controlled, we'll shovel some more money at Lorraine, and in return get nine greatly-needed extra votes in the Diet, since our own party discipline is quite a bit less than desired. Objections? No? Right then! See you tomorrow." Played like a clarinet! Yes, he thought, I am, what do the Mexicans say? I am la neta! I am el hombre! I am ... about to have a day that would bore most people to tears. But that's all right, he thought, because I am insane. Yes, I am a happy man. ---- Proceed to FAN #29: For Want of a Fact. Proceed to 21 July 1970 (Germany): The Hero of Paris. Return to For All Nails. Category: Germany